<p>
isn’t that the point?</p>
<p>College is not just a stepping stone to grad school, and should be chosen for the education you get there. (That is not to say that he could not get great education at the state school.)</p>
<p>“Gentlemen’s Cs” have never stopped graduates of the nation’s top colleges from contending for or occupying the most powerful job in the land.</p>
<p>None of this makes sense. </p>
<p>If a student is at the bottom of a college class because he goofs around and gets little out of the experience, well, at some level he may be better off going to Harvard but he’s not going to be prepared to embrace any number of opportunities. Goofing off and wasting your time is goofing off and wasting your time, whether at Harvard or at State U. </p>
<p>Go to a place that provides the right kind of opportunity and environment and get the most out of it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Calmom, I remember when my dd learned this lesson. On exam day, she breathed a sigh of relief when she realized she knew the answers to all the questions. So she jotted down her answers, and a few days later she was stunned at the grade she received. I believe it was a low C. </p>
<p>Since then, she has made sure to provide plenty of detail and elaboration when answering exam questions.</p>
<p>
Another poster posted an interesting link in the Parents Forum (entitled UCB vs UCLA but not specific to them) that has some interesting stats on grade inflation over the years and inflation at privates vs publics (generalized).</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/706589-ucb-vs-ucla.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/706589-ucb-vs-ucla.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Good point. What I’ve done about this, in consultation with my son, is set up a “high school” program that looks like a college program from some points of view. Lots of AP-level and post-calculus-level courses since ninth grade. I have no idea what an admission committee will make of this, but my son will be able to avoid </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>because he has already spent a lot of time as one fish among many fish in a big pond. </p>
<p>I agree that if the college admits the student, the college admission committee is making a judgment that the student can rise to the occasion of being at that college.</p>
<p>The theory of “The Happy Bottom Quarter”, an idea originated by a Harvard admissions officer decades ago, is explored very thoughtfully in a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell (Oct.10,2005).</p>
<p>Wilbur Bender, a past HU Admissions Dean describes how Harvard did not want a class full of only the academically talented, lest the college should become like University Of Chicago. Rather they were looking for students who would make an impact on society.</p>
<p>“Above a reasonably good level of mental ability, above that indicated by a 550-600 level of S.A.T. score, the only thing that matters in terms of future impact on, or contribution to society is the degree of personal inner force an individual has.” </p>
<p>Bender recognized the bottom quarter of Harvard’s class could indeed contibute as much, if not more, to the world than the studious top quarter. Today there are throngs of Harvard students whose huge time commitments to ECs are laying the foundation for lives in government, environmental, charitable groups, the arts, etc. Their GPAs may not be tops, but their future promise is huge.</p>
<p>Except I think that is probably a load of BS (in regard to Harvard). I bet the VAST majority of Harvard undergrads have BOTH top grads/test scores and tons of ECs. The idea that they are admitting 25%ish of their students with 550-600 SATs? I doubt it.</p>
<p>thanks for explanation, calmom, re making a right answer righter.</p>
<p>Jamiecakes- The quote, if you refer to The New Yorker article, is clearly from the 1950-60s, NOT the present. The point of my entry was to explore the theory of finding candidates for “The Happy Bottom Quarter”.</p>
<p>Obviously, no one is trying to claim the CURRENT bottom quarter possesses those statistics. As indicated, Wilbur Bender is a PAST Dean of Admissions. </p>
<p>I should have stated that his reign was 1952-1960, to head off such virulent presumptions as “a load of BS”. Gracious Jcakes! Perhaps it’s time to spend an extra minute to absorb the meaning of posts?</p>
<p>[College</a> Search - Harvard College - At a Glance](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board) </p>
<p>[College</a> Search - Harvard College - SAT®, AP®, CLEP®](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>Well, since the article you referred to was from 2005 and we are discussing a child for a future spot in a school, I think it isn’t terribly relevant, IMO, to quote something from 50 years ago. I don’t this it was so OBVIOUS that you were not referring to current students.</p>
<p>While I agree that people on the bottom quartile of any class can be happy and successful, I think it is reasonable to wonder if (in our currently, crazily, competative world) if a young student would feel overwhelmed or happy in a school where they aren’t even “average”.</p>
<p>It probably depends of the child.</p>
<p>I don’t think most students even know where they fall %-wise. At the schools my kids attended the grades were never discussed among the students, as far as I know. At the end the top 10% will know, because they are invited into Honor Society. The rest just know that they did not make the top 10% I guess.</p>
<p>If you were a “C-student” at Yale, and managed to graduate, no one would probably ever know that you were a “C-student”, unless you became the president of the USA.</p>
<p>Nngmm- so true, there doesn’t seem to be any information given to the students on rank until senior graduation. Thus, no outright feelings of inadequacy for quite awhile! </p>
<p>Jcakes-Since the bottom quarter at Harvard probably carries a B-/C+ average, I would consider that to be well above average.</p>
<p>From my observations, the bottom quarter at Harvard is extremely happy. Happy to be at Harvard getting a great education, excelling at extracurriculars, landing great internships and jobs even in this economy. And they do not feel that “they aren’t even average”. </p>
<p>Just today my DD listened to her Kennedy school professor urge the class to join the public service sector, assuring them that the successful Washington politicos were mostly “C” students at HU, more interested in people and issues than grade-grubbing.</p>
<p>This is the funniest thread. I am 50 and have never been asked class rank for my college or grad school. And back in the day, no one put GPA on if it was less than stellar. Has this changed? I don’t even know my rank for undergraduate or graduate school. At least one of them would not be worth remembering, but I know I never had that information.</p>
<p>Go to college. Graduate. Get a job. Pay your bills. Save for your kids’ college.</p>
<p>A lot of the people near the bottom of a college class are there because they don’t put in the work to do better. They may drink and party a lot, they may be heavily involved in a sport or extracurricular activity, they may not have the self-discipline to work harder, or they simply may not care about their grades – which may be reasonable if their after-college plans do not require a high GPA.</p>
<p>But there are also some people near the bottom of the class who are trying their hardest and can’t do better because their ability or high school preparation is not really adequate for that college. These are the people I worry about. Struggling academically for four years is not a pleasant experience, and being on academic probation or flunking out is even worse. </p>
<p>A student who is admitted to college with statistics in the bottom 25% may not turn out to be in the bottom 25% of the college class because many students with better qualifications won’t do their best, for one reason or another, and therefore won’t have grades as high as one might expect on the basis of their statistics.</p>
<p>Still, I think there is reason for concern about some students who are accepted to colleges for which they seem underqualified, especially if they aspire to medical school, law school, or some other form of post-college education for which high grades are needed.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nor have I, yet I gather that things may be different in some fields. Students aspiring to law, medical or graduate school often say here on CC that GPA is king. In the engineering forum, students say they face a GPA cutoff, sometimes as high as 3.5, to even be considered for some jobs. A real-life acquaintance told me he was rejected from multiple graduate programs in engineering because his undergraduate GPA was “only” 3.4. A family member, considering a midlife career change into nursing, discovered that his undergrad GPA from 20 years earlier would be a barrier.</p>
<p>These are the stories that make me wonder: Is a student really better off to attend a high-ranked college and end up with a GPA well below 3.5? below 3.0? If the school curves most grades to a B-, or even a generous B, the bottom half of the class and even some students in the top half will have grades too low to meet some of the cutoffs.</p>
<p>I don’t know what my rank was in college - though I squeaked by with a *magna cum laude <a href=“my%20GPA%20was%20somewhere%20between%20a%20B+%20and%20an%20A-”>/I</a> and got highest honors in my department because of my senior thesis and generally good grades. No one has ever asked me for my rank, though obviously the honors designation can’t hurt. I wasn’t aiming for med or law school however.</p>
<p>Can you imagine answering the question about college rank–“Well, I was 16,208 in a class of 25,792”?</p>
<p>It’s really not rank per se that’s the issue; in most cases, it’s GPA.</p>
<p>There are quite a few jobs and internships that have GPA requirements. It may be 3.0 or above or 3.5 or above or some other number, but you have to have a GPA in the required range to even be considered.</p>
<p>Graduate programs also pay a lot of attention to GPA and even more attention to grades in specific, relevant courses.</p>
<p>I believe that at most universities, the bottom quarter of the class has GPAs below 3.0. This limits their opportunities for some jobs and some types of further education – but it’s not because of their class rank, it’s because of the low grades.</p>